Painting Roses
by Born-Of-Elven-Blood
Summary: Jane meets the man of her dreams. Literally. Now she just has to figure out how one lives happily ever after when the handsome prince is already dead. [Loki/Jane]
1. Prologue: Two Princes

**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of these characters or the original plot of the MCU. This story, such as it is, is not for sale or profit.

**AN**: The concept for this story is the shameless product of a forty-eight hour Disney movie binge, with a sprinkling of inspiration from Lewis Carroll, Jane Austen, and Star Trek thrown in for spice. This is basically a work of pure self-satisfaction – in other words, I'm about to embarrass myself irrevocably by displaying the innate goofiness of my imagination. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome, but don't bother flaming, I am already well aware of what you are probably thinking.

Fair warning: there _will_ be singing.

This story takes place after the events of Thor II: The Dark World, and is non-compliant with anything after that.

.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Prologue <strong>_

_Two Princes_

.

* * *

><p>"<em>One, two, princes kneel before you<br>That's what I said now,  
>Princes; princes who adore you<br>Just go ahead now...  
>Marry him? Or marry me?<br>I'm the one who loves you, baby, can't you see?  
>I ain't got no future or family tree,<br>But I know what a princely lover ought to be…"_

_- Spin Doctors_

.

* * *

><p>"This is not a game for me, Jane!" Thor said, gesturing expansively at the space between his position and where Jane stood on the opposite side of the room. His tone was ominous with accusation.<p>

"It isn't a game for me either!" Jane insisted, trying valiantly to hold back tears. This was not going well. Why did he insist on pushing her?

_He's the handsome prince, _she thought derisively at herself,_ and I'm the peasant girl he wants to sweep off her feet and carried off into the sunset. That isn't supposed to happen outside of fairytales, but here it is. Happily ever after! What is the matter with me?_

Now was not the time to sit down and tally up that list. They'd be here all night.

"I turned my back on my home and gave up my throne to come here!" Thor raged on, ignoring her troubled silence. He turned away and ran his fingers through his golden locks, distressed. "To be with you!"

Jane sucked in a slow breath, gripping her temper with both hands, but she could feel herself bristling. Well, at least the problems were not _all_ hers.

"So you keep reminding me," she replied, gritting her teeth slightly as that now-familiar reminder grated at her with guilt that riled an old, hurtful anger. She somehow resisted reminding him that she had wasted two years of her comparatively very short life waiting for him. They had already been down that road, and while slapping him again might feel really good at the moment, she somehow doubted it would solve anything. "I told you before, this just… isn't the right time… I have to… think…"

"What is there to think about, Jane?" Thor demanded, whirling around to pin her with a glare. Even from across the room, and despite knowing he would never harm her, his anger and sheer physical presence were enough to make her shrink with a thrill of fear. "Have we not had enough time for thinking while we were apart? And it isn't as though this is the first time we have spoken of this. There has been time _enough_. What are you _waiting_ for?"

"Yeah, time. Lots of time," Jane muttered, wincing internally. She just couldn't help it, could she? It always came out when they fought, her resentment over his long absence.

Thor narrowed his eyes, but didn't say anything. What could he say, after all? He could have found a way to come to her sooner… Jane sighed.

"I'm sorry. I'm not… it's just… with work… and you always taking off with SHIELD… and you stay away for days, even weeks at a time…" _Even years at a time… don't say it. Resist. _"I'm just trying to concentrate on my research right now and…"

She trailed off as she saw Thor shaking his head. He looked pained and disgusted. He crossed to her and clasped her shoulders gently in his hands.

"It is always the same excuses, be it for small matters or for…" he sighed, as though deeply disappointed in her, "… or for a proposal of marriage," he said, the accusation softened by the quiet, hurt tone of his voice as he crossed to her. Despite his gentle touch, his hands were a heavy weight on her shoulders. "I want to be with you, Jane. I want to _marry _you. Isn't that what you want?"

"I…" She hesitated, the words stuck in her throat. The way his face fell at her silence made the threatening tears spill over, tracing twin trails down her cheeks. She forced the words past her lips, unable to bear the sight of his pain. "Of _course_ that's what I want," she said, her voice choked, lying through her teeth. "It just… isn't the right time…"

Thor dropped her shoulders as though he'd been burned, and stalked away, still shaking his head.

"I don't understand you anymore, Jane," he said, anger creeping back in. He waved a hand and his armor began to reassemble on his arms and chest. Mjolnir whizzed through the air, smacking into his outstretched hand with a meaty thwack.

"You're… you're going…?" Jane asked, hurt at his dismissal in spite of everything. And under that, disgusted at the sigh of relief she had to suppress.

"I swore that I would return to the Avengers Tower before morning. SHIELD received a transmission from… " He stopped short and shook his head. He was doing that more and more – stopping mid-sentence, as though he had said more than he meant to about SHIELD. About the part of his life that happened when she wasn't around. _Keeping things from me_. It left Jane cold. But she could hardly complain. "Suffice it to say, there isn't time. Not even for this." He grimaced, his expression bitter. "Perhaps especially not for this. If you won't tell me what truly holds you back, there is no point to me staying here."

"Thor, I just…"

"I hope to see you soon." He paused in the doorway, but didn't turn around. "I love you, Jane. But… I cannot wait forever."

He was gone before she could reply, the door closing quietly behind him. A moment later, the distinctive whoosh of his flight rattled the windows of her London flat.

She stood there staring at the door for long minutes, her conflicted tears turning angry.

"Well why the hell _not_?!" she finally snarled at the offending surface. Childishly, she snatched an accent pillow off of the nearby sofa and threw it at the door with all her might. It bounced off and tumbled ineffectually to the floor. "You of all people have _forever_ to wait! We're not all so lucky!"

With a huff, she wiped at her eyes and shook her head. She was exhausted. But she didn't want to go to bed yet.

She didn't want to dream yet.

Instead, she left the abused throw pillow on the floor and meandered miserably into the bathroom, stripped off her clothes and turned on the shower as hot as she could stand it. The room was soon sweltering with steam. The burning water felt cleansing in more than just a physical sense, and Jane stood underneath the scalding spray until the heat gave way. She shut the flow off before it could turn icy. She stood there, naked and dripping, staring at the tile, for a long time.

She _did_ love Thor. She did. Or rather… she _cared_ about him. A great deal.

A small part of her was able to admit that she'd spent so long waiting for him that it almost seemed like a waste _not _to love him – and that maybe she was in love with the _idea_ of him...

No! No she _did _care. She cared… but that was all. It wasn't… enough. Not enough to overcome… _that. _

Jane felt her cheeks heat.

Her own mortality wasn't the problem, not really. While it hurt to think of, it was him that would be left behind when she died, not her.

Neither was her work the issue, though the seemingly limitless funds at her disposal now that Stark Industries was sponsoring her research meant that she had enough means to explore her theories as far as she could desire, and it was keeping her busier and busier these days. Even so, she could have taken a day off to tie the knot if she _really _wanted to. That wasn't what was holding her back either.

Nor was it that Thor had left her waiting without word for two full years, or that he was keeping secrets from her now, though these things weighed heavily on her thoughts, especially now that he'd taken up with SHIELD.

All of it paled in comparison to the real motivation of her hesitation. But she could never tell him the truth. She could barely admit it to herself. He'd think she was insane. Almost as insane as she knew she really must be.

She toweled off, dried her hair, climbed into her favorite pajamas and put on a pot of tea. Some chamomile would soothe her ragged nerves. She stood beside the stove, staring at nothing, working very hard not to think about anything, until the kettle whistled. Moments later, she was curled up on the couch with the steaming cup warming her hands. She turned on the TV and tried to let it numb her mind, but the tears that the shower had washed away kept trying to escape again.

She didn't really see the screen. Instead her eyes drifted down to the coffee table, where a dog-earred copy of _Alice in Wonderland _lay tempting her to open its pages. Beside it was a stack of old Disney movies she'd dug up out of a box of her childhood things she had in the closet.

The tea was hot and calming. She began to hum quietly to herself.

"_A very merry unbirthday to you! Who me? Yes, you! Oh me!" _she sang quietly into the rising steam, and it let her smile just a little through the hurt. That song always invaded her head when she drank tea, ever since she was a small child pretending to be an attendee at the Mad Hatter's tea party. _"Let's all congratulate us with another cup of tea! A very merry unbirthday to me!"_

She had always adored the story, both the book and the film. Her father had read it to her as a child, and she grew to appreciate it more with each passing year. Sometimes she wondered if she had become another Alice, falling through wormholes instead of rabbit holes, and finding herself in worlds just as mad as the Cheshire Cat predicted.

More recently still, as she had yet another reason to be preoccupied with Wonderland …

At length, her eyelids began drooping. She could avoid sleep no longer. And in truth, she didn't want to avoid it. Guilt gnawed at her. But so did the pull of her dreams. The world was bleary with the haze of her physical and emotional exhaustion, and she could already feel herself teetering on the edge of the rabbit hole, ready to plummet into the dark bottomless pit of slumber. The thought was paradoxically exciting, giving her sleepiness a surreal quality, making the room spin slightly.

Not for the first time, she thought to herself that she really must be crazy.

Resigned to her giddy guilt, she turned off the mindlessly chattering TV and climbed into bed. Exhaustion pulled at her eyelids. Through her lashes, her dissolving vision fixed on a vase situated on her window sill. It contained a single red rose that she had purchased from a street vendor that afternoon; she had taken to keeping one there, where she could see it before she slept, and when she woke up each morning.

In the dark, the moonlight gleamed from its supple curves, washing its lines almost white with its silver beams. _Red roses painted white… how ridiculous, it's the other way around… _she nearly laughed, but she was too sleepy to even sigh. Two more tears leaked, unheeded, from under her lashes. Within minutes the lonely emptiness of her bedroom was lost to the darkness of sleep.

.

* * *

><p>When Jane opened her eyes once more, she was surrounded by green and gold, sunlight and shrubbery. She breathed in a shaking breath at the familiar scene: a formal garden, walled on all four sides with towering hedges. The hedges were dotted with heavy-headed white roses. A few of them, she noted, were stained red, and the sight very nearly made her smile, but only succeeded in bringing more tears to her eyes. White granite flagstones formed paths through the green lawns and topiaries cut into fantastical figures, all intersecting in the middle of the space where a great golden sun dial stood useless - for in spite of the daylight, its needle never cast a shadow to codify time.<p>

Dreams stood outside of time, she supposed. It meant nothing here.

And she was no longer alone.

"You've been crying."

Jane stiffened and turned.

Loki sat cross-legged on the lawn beside the hedge, a deck of playing cards disarrayed in mid-shuffle occupying his hands. His hair was loose around his shoulders, and he wore a green tunic and soft leather trouser – his "home clothes" as he referred to them; what he wore when he wanted to be comfortable. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him in armor. A can of red paint stood half empty nearby, the brush laying where she had discarded it the night before, left to ooze its sticky contents onto the unassuming grass.

_White roses painted red… _like a mirror reflecting her waking life, the same picture in reverse. _I've stepped through the looking glass._

_And here's another handsome prince, mirrored, the complete reverse of the other._

At the sight of Loki's coldly beautiful face so open and unguarded with curiosity and reluctantly worried, her eyes softened. He was so familiar to her now; this dead man that haunted her dreams. Her heart skipped in her chest, and then began to pound. Breathless, she tried to speak, to brush off his concern, but it was no use. Tears tracked her cheeks once more, and she looked away.

Loki tossed aside the playing cards and rose, swift and graceful, to cross to her, his brow furrowed with concern and displeasure. He didn't like it when she cried. His hands also had a weight of strength, but they didn't feel like Thor's hands. As they curled around her shoulders, they didn't feel like a burden. He rubbed them, tilting his head trying to catch her eye. When he succeeded, he flashed her a sly, teasing smile that, now that she knew him, never failed to elicit an answering smile from her, no matter how down she was.

"Let me guess," he said, rolling his eyes up in mock thoughtfulness, "Hmm… your dress maker mis-measured your waistline and all your gowns are ruined. No? Very well… a barmaid tipped a pitcher of ale down your back and everyone laughed at you. Not it either? Ah, I know! You ordered that odious sounding "take out" again and now your stomach is sick – ouch!" Loki pretended to cringe in mortal pain as Jane slapped him half-heartedly on the shoulder. "I told you that filth was hazardous to your health. When _will_ you learn to listen to me, Jane?"

Jane huffed out a quiet laugh, even as her chest constricted painfully. How could she hurt so much, and still be smiling? Thor had had this effect on her once… a long time ago. Now, only Loki, here in her dreams, could make her smile through her pain.

As she sniffed back her tears and wiped them away, a nearly overwhelming urge assailed her; she wanted to tell him everything. But she didn't answer him.

Instead, she stepped back, out of his reach, and after a moment, his hands dropped back to his sides, accepting her silence, as she had done for him in the past.

As one they turned and together walked farther into the garden to see what amusement awaited them there tonight; it was always something different, though if what they found didn't suit them, there was always croquet. The mallets were even carved to resemble flamingos. And if all else failed, there were always roses to paint.

All the while as they walked, Loki stayed close by her side, talking animatedly to manipulate her from her sadness, and all the while Jane gratefully let him, refusing to allow herself to dwell on the truth.

It wasn't her mortality that kept her from marrying Thor. There were ways around that, or so she had heard. And it wasn't her work, which had never been better. And it wasn't the secrets Thor kept from her.

It was this secret that she kept from him.

It was this insanity.

Loki, brother of Thor, was dead. She had watched him die in the desert wastelands of an alien world. She knew with certainty that he was gone beyond any reach, in the most final way possible.

But every single night, she dreamed of him.

She knew it was a dream. She knew that Loki was dead. She knew he'd been a ruthless, egomaniacal sociopath in life. She knew she had a wonderful, caring, amazing man - _the handsome prince _- practically begging her to be his wife. She knew what she _should_ do, and what she had waited for and wanted for those two long years.

None of it had prevented this. And though she didn't know when or how or why it had happened, whether it was miserable luck or madness or some massive character flaw, it was becoming increasingly difficult to deny the truth: She had stepped through the looking glass, and while her lover waited impatiently for her on the other side, her heart was here, in this dreamscape beyond the edge of sleep.

Somehow, despite everything, she had fallen hopelessly in love with a dream of a dead man.

.

* * *

><p>TBC<p>

.

* * *

><p>AN: So, cheesy as hell, right? Oh, just you wait… but if you're bored and have nothing better to do, give it a chance. The characters may seem a bit ooc; my defense is that a large part of the story takes place inside a dream, and I'm operating on the theory that in a dream, all your mental and emotional defenses are down; who you are when you're awake might be totally different from who you are when you're asleep, right? Meh, just roll with it…<p>

I actually had about 90% of this story written, and then I lost the flashdrive it was stored on, which caused me to temporarily die inside, mercilessly tarred, feathered and lynched by my muse; I eventually recovered from the hanging, but the feathers won't come off... So anyway, this is a rewrite; even the outline had to be re-written – and this time I'm uploading as I go, dagnabit! I'm also still working on my primary lokane series, so, if by some miracle this story has piqued your interest, please be patient, more will be coming soon!


	2. Sweet Dreams

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing except the original plot of this story, and even that was inspired by Disney movies. Not for sale or profit!

**A/n: **Well, since I love you all so much for reading and reviewing, here's my cheesy valentine to you – more story!

_._

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter 1<strong>_

_Sweet Dreams_

_._

* * *

><p><em>Sweet dreams are made of these<br>Who am I to disagree?  
>Travel the world and the seven seas<br>Everybody's looking for something…_

_-Eurythmics_

.

* * *

><p><em>Once upon a time…<em>

The first time Jane dreamed of Loki was the night Thor returned from Asgard.

It was an early night, and a memorable one for Jane. She was not one to fall into bed with a man; and when she thought of it, she realized with some discomfort that at that point she and Thor had only spent a total of a week's worth of days together - and most of that time had been spent fighting alien invaders. In fact, she would later realize that their entire relationship up to that point was based on brief periods of flirtation and steamy kisses stolen between fiery explosions, heart pounding spaceship chases and episodes of mortal combat. It never really occurred to her at the time to wonder how they would get along when they didn't have a constant stream of adrenaline fanning the flames.

But when he had stepped from the light of the Bifrost on the balcony of her flat, none of that could have mattered; they had pined for each other for over two years. That kind of tension could only be answered in one way. Eric, Darcy and Ian had stayed only long enough to greet Thor and promise to see him again soon, before they made their hasty exit, exchanging knowing smirks, snickers and lewd comments in stage whispers (mostly Darcy). The reunited lovers had barely heard them, and the door had barely clicked shut before they forgot everything but each other.

That night, lying warm, sated and exhausted in Thor's arms, she had drifted off to sleep and entered her conscious dreamscape for the first time.

It did not start with Loki. It started with Frigga.

When she first became aware of her dream, Jane found herself in grassy meadow, fronds of grass rustling all around her knees in a breeze she couldn't feel. The sprawling savannah was lit bright as noonday, which she found strange, because it appeared to be night; the sky overhead was inky black, and wheeled with sparkling stars, soaring comets and winking meteors that streaked the sky like drops of rain.

In the distance, at the very heart of the endless meadow stood a massive ancient tree, its gnarled roots mounding around it like coiled serpents, its twisting trunk, so large it would take hours to circle, plummeting skyward. Its great leafing branches burgeoned up and outward in a great green nimbus that intermingled with wisps of cloud, blocking out fully half of the sky. Within its leafy depths shone clusters of misty, shimmering lights. As Jane moved closer, each step carrying her miles at a time, they solidified into focus: worlds. Planets of every color and shape and sort, some ringed, some concealed by asteroids, some swirled with colorful gasses, others barren and rocky, some covered in glittering ice, others roiling with liquid fire, yet others green with rampant plant life, red with shifting sands, or blue with endless oceans. All of them hung suspended like ripe fruit from the branches of the great tree, each connected to the other by the timeless intertwining branches.

_Yggdrasil._

The name was in her mind before she could think to wonder. Here was the World Tree, resplendent as any of the ancient Norse could have imagined it. There was no shade in its far-reaching shadow as Jane passed under the vast canopy. The twinkling of the realms gave the illusion of twilight on a summer night, where children run between the glowing pools of lamplight in search of fireflies.

By that light Jane watched as the great roots before her rearranged themselves to form a staircase, leading up towards the trunk of the tree. As is the way of dreams, Jane did not question whether she should climb them. They were there, so she did. Time lost all meaning, and she may have climbed for months, or only moments, before at last she reached a landing. It took the form of an oblong bowl, carpeted with soft green grass. The stairs continued up, winding around the great trunk up into the shadows beyond sight and imagination. What lay that way was not for her to know.

Frigga was waiting for her there upon the lawn. She looked strange in lacy, high-necked Victorian gown of pure white, but the strangeness did nothing to mask her beauty. Ever graceful, the queen was perched delicately upon an arch of exposed root, a parasol stood propped up against it on the lawn beside her and a large leather-bound book poised open on her lap. Jane could just make out the title, _Fairytales_, in gold embossed letters on the cover.

Frigga looked up from her story and smiled in welcome. Jane stepped off the stairs onto the soft grass, and walked over to her. Curious, she sat down beside Frigga on the wide, log-like root and peered down at the pages as Frigga turned them over.

Each page held the title of a story; but rather than the words, each tale was told in moving pictures, like movie screens, playing out scenes from movies.

Frigga turned past Snow White, the Little Mermaid, the Lion King, Cinderella, The Princess and the Frog, and Aladdin before she paused on Alice in Wonderland. Jane's favorite. They watched together for a time. Frigga's smile never quite left her face, but her eyes became thoughtful, intent on the story, while Jane split her time glancing curiously between the book and the dead queen.

After a time, Frigga looked up at Jane. She reached up and laid one hand against Jane's cheek. Her eyes shone with a wealth of emotions that made Jane's chest constrict: motherly love, gratitude, acceptance, admiration, expectation, regret and hope, all tempered with a sly and knowing wisdom that left Jane feeling very young and uncertain. She opened her mouth to speak, to say that she was sorry, or grateful, or confused. Frigga laid one finger against her mouth to stop her and shook her head. No words.

With one last wistful pat of the younger woman's cheek, Frigga stood and strode several paces away. In a display of strength belied by her delicate frame, she held the massive leather-bound book open in one hand as she traced her fingers over the little picture window in the page. Green arcs of energy sparked from their tips, splashing against the vellum and soaking in. Her smile turned apologetic as she met Jane's eyes and tossed the book on the ground between them.

The book never hit the ground; instead the ground opened up beneath it, falling away to reveal a crumbling, root-lined hole burrowed deep into the earth. Jane peered over the edge, fascinated, as the book tumbled, flapping wildly, down into the abyss. There was no light in the tunnel, but its interior was perfectly visible nonetheless and she could see that it plummeted far down into the heart of the world. If there was a bottom, it was beyond her sight.

Bewildered, she looked up to find Frigga, holding out a hand to her, as though to help her up from her seat. She stood at the lip of the hole. If Jane reached for her, she would fall.

_Follow the white rabbit down the rabbit hole. To Wonderland…_

A thrill of excitement danced up her spine, and she reached out automatically, then hesitated, pulling her fingers back before she could touch Frigga's outstretched palm. It felt as though she was teetering on the edge of something more than merely a bottomless pit.

This was a decision. To act was to agree.

Agree to what?

She met Frigga's eyes once more, but found nothing but an enigmatically unreadable smile.

Worlds hung in the balance. Jane could feel it.

And yet, it was just a dream. And Jane wanted to see Wonderland.

She reached for Frigga's hand.

Frigga reached past her, gripped her around the wrist, and pulled. Jane lost her balance and tipped forward. Then she was weightless.

She caught one last glimpse of Frigga, shrinking into the distance high above as she watched Jane fall, her face tight and tear-tracked with yearning, as though she ached to go with her. She held up one hand in farewell. Then there was nothing but earthen walls rushing by until they too were lost in darkness.

.

* * *

><p>As it sometimes happens in dreams, Jane lost all sense of the dimensions of her dreamscape, and it passed without passing as she shifted in and out of awareness. Then suddenly there was a splash, a wash of warmth, and Jane opened her eyes to find herself submerged in a warm, vast sunlit ocean of salty water. She thought of Frigga, crying on the lip of the rabbit hole. <em>Not water. Tears. <em>In the story, Alice had nearly drowned in an ocean of her own tears; now Jane was plunged under the deluge of Frigga's.

Jane swam for the surface high above, but no matter how vigorously she stroked at the water, she continued to sink. Down, down, down she sank, kicking the whole way, fighting a force she could neither understand nor overcome.

As she descended the dream began to transform around her. Contrary to logic, the water became less and less dense as she descended, lightening slowly from something like rain, to a heavy mist, to a fine fog, until, by the time her feet struck the ocean floor, she was no longer swimming through water, but running through air, and she was not surrounded by blue-green waters, but towering walls of green leaves rising all around her.

A hedge maze. There was no more sign of the ocean but the blue sky high above, though she was still dripping wet. She wondered if she would dry faster if she ran in a circle.

"_Inward, outward, upward, downward, come and join the chase, for nothing could be drier than a jolly caucus race!" _

Humming, she spun around and around, giggling quietly as the water flew away from her in arcs rather than droplets to splash against the hedge in a deluge, leaving her completely dry.

Rustling caught her attention. Jane stopped short with a gasp, holding her breath. She looked around, but there was no one in sight, and after a moment, her mind drifted, distracted by the stretch of the path away from where she stood. She found her feet carrying her forward before she knew she was moving. It didn't occur to her to question it; though she was more aware than she'd ever been in a dream, the dream still had a will of its own that rivaled hers.

Wandering for a time, she came upon a number of topiaries dotted with the massive white roses, and beneath them stood sloppily streaked cans of red paint, each with the handle of a brush sticking out. She instantly recognized it, as one does in dreams – she was in the hedge maze outside the Red Queen's garden!

As she began eyeing the paint cans thoughtfully, her mind drifted uncannily back to Thor, and began replaying the past few hours she'd spent with him with a strange mixture of afterglow and unease, the kind one feels when one has done something wonderfully daring, and is mortified for having had the audacity to do it. But it was fine, she assured herself again and again over the clenching in her gut that felt something like panic. It didn't matter that she'd rushed in. She was going to be with Thor forever.

She suddenly lost all interest in the paint cans, and began to wander aimlessly. The maze seemed endless and full of possibility, and the red paint strangely unappealing.

Another rustling in the greenery when there was no breeze to stir the leaves arrested her attention, and it was then that she first felt his eyes on her. She looked up.

Loki stood at the far end of the long stretch of the greenery, in a gap between the hedges, observing her meandering with a stillness that put stone to shame. He was in full armor, all dark leather and gold plating, his green eyes seeming to bore holes right through to the back of her brain as he watched her with intent curiosity and something like accusation.

Her first reaction had been to be struck with just how intimidating and unearthly beautiful he really was. So different from Thor, who had his own masculine beauty, but warmer, less complex – Loki was the labyrinthine, enigmatic darkness to his brother's pure, direct light. Polar opposites.

Something in her had wanted to cross that distance and go to him. The urge was so powerful that she felt sure that if she lifted her feet she would fly straight to his side by sheer force of will.

Instead she ran from him, turning to dart away through the hedge maze, heedless of direction, only seeking to get _away. _She could feel him following her, as one always can in a dream. Yet the terrible, cloying terror that dreams of being hunted always evoke was mitigated, softened by a kind of distant muffling that she could not place. She was frantic avoid him, but it was the giddy, near panicked delight of a child being chased by 'it' in a game of tag.

Though she ran for what seemed like hours, she didn't see him again. But she could always _feel_ him nearby, as though she had developed a new sensory perception more real than sight or sound, and it existed solely to detect his presence. He would gain on her, only to lose her in the hedge, circling around sometimes to try to head her off. She evaded again and again, flushed and smiling broadly, all conflicted, uncertain thoughts of her tryst with Thor and her own questionable behavior forgotten as she sprinted through the maze. She darted left, then right, and he was suddenly on her heels, right behind her! She put on speed, but she could swear she felt his breath against her ear, as a whisper threaded along every nerve ending she possessed…

"_Jane…"_

She woke.

He didn't catch her. She lay there in her bed beside her new lover, her heart pounding, staring at the ceiling and feeling strangely bereft. _Next time, I'll catch him… _ She shook herself, a wistful little smile playing on her lips. It was a dream, and it had been oddly wonderful, but now it was over. She turned to look at Thor, his bare chest gloriously accented by the slant of morning sunlight through the window, and in her fascination the dream was quickly dismissed. It was just a dream.

.

* * *

><p>But the next night, when she became aware of her dreams, she was in the hedge maze again. And so was Loki.<p>

And that was how it was every night after.

.

* * *

><p>Days were spent elbow deep in research, exploring the technology Erik had developed during the convergence, followed by evenings spent exploring every inch of her alien boyfriend. And by night, while Jane slept beside Thor in the waking world, she dashed through her dreams with Loki in a mad game of hide-and-seek crossed with tag.<p>

The two of them circled each other endlessly, though never quite drawing as near as they had that first night. They were magnets with like poles, ever pushing at each other, and each time they drew near some invisible force barred them from coming together, held them apart and pushed them in unpredictable directions.

Some nights she was indeed the one who did the chasing. The hedge maze seemed endless and utterly random, and there were times she didn't see him at all, only felt his presence, heard his footfalls, caught a scent on the wind of something cool and oddly familiar that she knew, with that knowing that happens only in dreams, was his scent.

Every now and then, though, they did catch sight of each other. Their eyes would lock across the distance, through a gap in the maze, or down the length of the passage between the hedges before one or the other of them would dart around the bend. Sometimes he looked annoyed, sometimes amused. A couple times he seemed furious, and once, she was certain she saw tears on his cheeks. But always, when their eyes met, he looked curious.

Never in her life had Jane had such vivid, memorable dreams. And while she was still subject to the seemingly random compulsions of that every dreamer experiences in dreams – to run, to seek, to act, to chase, through no choice of her own - she was oddly and acutely aware of herself and the fact that she was dreaming.

Vivid as they were, and strange as it struck her that she had the same dream every night, she couldn't bring herself to examine it too closely. Every time she thought to question it, her mind just sort of skittered away from the subject. Neither did she feel like she could talk about her dreams, though Thor asked about them once, when she woke to find him watching her intently.

"Your brow furrowed as you slept. Were you dreaming?"

"I… it's strange, I …keep having the same dream. Over and over..."

"A good one I hope."

"I don't know. It's not exactly good, but it's not really bad either. Just… strange."

"In what way?"

Jane tried to tell him, but she was surprised to find that she couldn't bring herself to speak the words. She had murmured something superfluous and indistinct, then hooked her leg around his and kissed him. Sufficiently distracted, he rolled on top of her and didn't ask about it again. She was later disappointed in herself for using sex as a diversion, but the idea of sharing her dream almost felt wrong enough to justify it. She didn't understand her own reluctance, but there was something inexplicably private about her dreams in the hedge maze with Loki. Something that was for them alone.

No - she had to remind herself on more than one occasion - for _her _alone.

Loki was dead, and she was dreaming. Even if he had been alive, he could not be inside her dreams. He was not really in that hedge maze beyond the rabbit hole, and neither was she.

She knew this. And yet…

When their eyes met, she could swear she could _feel _him there.

It did trouble her that she didn't feel comfortable talking with Thor about it. But she didn't talk much with Thor at all, actually. Not about anything terribly deep. Most of their time together was taken up with the newness of their intimacy, teasing, flirting, touching, kissing. It wasn't that she didn't want to talk to him – she did! She wanted to learn everything about him. But when they talked, they seemed to somehow fall out of sync with each other, and their interaction became difficult and awkward. Everything flowed so much more naturally between them when they stopped trying so hard and just let their bodies take over. Why waste time talking, when it was so much easier to touch?

Jane knew that wasn't right. They should be able to talk to each other about something other than sex. But their relationship was still new, and they would work it out. They had worked too hard, and cared too much, for something stupid like small talk to get in their way. It _had_ to work out.

So in spite of her worries, she spent her days in a sort of honeymoon bliss with Thor, and her nights playing cat and mouse with the dream of Loki in the hedge maze. It was an odd dichotomy. But totally innocuous.

Then everything changed.

.

* * *

><p>Thor was called away suddenly. Something to do with the Mandarin incident in New York. SHIELD had put all the Avengers on standby, but even though it was all over before he any of them knew about it, Thor insisted on going to New York anyway. Word had it that Tony Stark was having surgery to remove the shrapnel from his chest. Thor had gone on at length about the bond forged between comrades in battle and how he would not feel right leaving the Iron Man to face his destiny alone. Not to mention, Jane had learned through the grapevine that Stark Tower was being rebuilt as a base of operations for the Avengers initiative, and Thor's input was wanted, but he wouldn't say much about that when she pressed him. And Jane, feeling guilty for keeping her own secrets, however harmless, felt wrong demanding to know his, especially if it was a matter of global security. The less she had to do with SHIELD the better, she decided.<p>

And so Thor left that day for the first time since his return. As such, that night Jane was alone in her bed for the first time since the dreams of Loki began.

It was as though Thor had been a buffer between them, the force that had kept them lost in the green all along. The moment he was gone, Jane finally found her way into the Red Queen's garden.

In her dream she was chasing Loki. There was no reason for it – there never was. Sometimes she had vague thoughts that she needed to tell him something, but when she tried to remember what it was, it swirled away from her like mist ghosting through grasping fingers, and all that remained was the compulsive need to find him. The roses seemed to call her on, rustling with her prey's passing as she ran the labyrinthine twists and turns of the hedge maze. Fleeting glimpses teased her from the corner of her eye, of gleaming green and gold, pale skin, dark hair, the swift, graceful motions that she was never quite quick enough to catch head on.

She ran forward through the maze so hastily that when she suddenly reached the center, the garden seemed to explode before her and swallow her into its midst before she realized what had happened.

Spinning about, gasping in surprise at this new place, she turned in circles, taking it in, the flagstones walks, the great topiaries with white roses, red paint cans ringing bases, just as they had been scattered through the hedges, a large marble table with a checkered board atop it for playing games, a deck of playing cards stacked in one corner; and rows of tiny, ostentatious flowers in neat square beds that gave off a faint, musical hum. The lawn was dotted with croquet wickets.

_Wonderland…_ Her first instinct was to look around for flamingos and hedgehogs, or at least a white rabbit. She turned in an abrupt circle, wondering where they might be kept.

This was how she found herself face to face with Loki for the first time.

.

* * *

><p>He stood so close behind her that she startled at the sight of him. Gasping, she stumbled backwards so that she nearly tumbled over one of the wickets. Like a striking snake, his arms shot out and his long, pale fingers enfolded her shoulders, steadying her as though by instinct rather than intent.<p>

And with that touch, after so many nights of chasing and fleeing, their game of tag ended. The dream told her it was so.

Loki held her eyes for an intense moment. Jane looked back, her gaze trapped, her breath caught in her throat, her body frozen. The nearly companionable rhythm of the dream had lost its beat, and she didn't know what she should do. Or what he would do.

Then his face lit with a smug smirk. Jane's heart skipped at the sudden expression; the only thought that slipped past the blockade in her head was that it made him seem so much younger than he was. There was something of a little boy at play in that face so accustomed to severity.

"Caught you at last," he gloated. "I win." The expression sobered and became intent once more. "Now, Jane Foster, tell me why you have been invading my dreams."

Jane frowned, her brow furrowing. But she gratefully grasped the thread he'd taken up and pulled, unraveling a fraction of the tension that held her.

"I haven't been in your dreams. _You _have been in _mine_," she insisted, stepping out of his grasp and putting a few paces between them. Loki made no move to follow – and Jane felt no more urge to run. The chase was truly done.

Loki cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Is that so?" he countered, his voice lilting with curiosity and amusement, just an edge of derision with a shallow bite. "You sound awfully certain of that."

Jane opened her mouth, blinked, closed it, and looked away.

"Well… you're dead," she muttered. "Dead people don't dream."

She glanced up to see realization register on his face as he absorbed her words. He looked down, his eyes searching the lawn thoughtfully. She wondered how the corner of his lips could still be tilted upwards so stubbornly, even as he contemplated his own demise. Even the dream version of him was strange and incomprehensible.

"Of course, I see," he murmured.

He glanced up at her from under his brow, and her heart skipped again. She resisted the urge to take another step back, an urge that had nothing to do with the compulsions inherent in dreaming, and everything to do with the intensity of his eyes. He smirked at her. Was it playful, or dangerous? Jane couldn't tell.

"How do you know the dead don't dream?"

"I…" she pursed her lips. "Don't be ridiculous. Dead is dead."

Loki, who had turned as she spoke to take in the surroundings with a perplexed air, pinned her once more with that intense gaze. Jane was just considering running again, when he suddenly turned away with a shrug.

"Whatever you say," he said blithely, holding his arms open in a gesture of surrender. "And yet here we are. How do you suppose that came to be?"

"Well, you're obviously a figment of my imagination," Jane reasoned coolly, fidgeting with her hair as she said it. Pointing out that he wasn't real seemed rude, somehow.

"I see…" Loki looked at her sidelong, thoughtfully. He seemed to be sizing her up as he began to pace in a wide, slow circle around her. "So you've conjured me here from… from the afterworld, I suppose… with your imagination?"

"I… well, no…" Jane shook her head, watching him move, needing instinctively to keep him in her sight. "Look, you're not… I mean… _you _can't be the real Loki. The _real _Loki is gone. For good."

"So I am a fiction to you?"

"No! Or… yes," Jane shifted uncomfortably under the unreadable gleam in Loki's eye. "I don't know, I guess so. My subconscious created a version of you from my memories and my imagination. But you're not actually Loki. You only exist in my mind."

"Yet you do not know what to do with me," Loki observed, apparently pleased with her discomfort. "You do not know what I am thinking or what I will do. You do not know what to make of me. Why is that?"

"How should I know?" Jane retorted, walking over to sit on a nearby bench beside the path. "Who knows what dreams mean? It's the mind's way of dealing with the stress of daily life."

"And the stresses of your daily life involve me, how?" Loki questioned, amused interest lacing his words as he paced lazily along, his eyes straying from her to examine the layout of the garden once more. He stopped beside one of the flowerbeds, toeing the flowers gently with the tip of his boot and smiling more widely when their tones jangled and modulated like a dropped set of bells.

"They don't!" she snapped. "Not in the least."

A moment later, the day of the Convergence flashing through her mind, she wondered if that were strictly true. She'd watched him die horribly before her eyes. Something like that left a mark on the psyche.

"Perhaps it has to do with Thor then?" he mused, the edge of a sneer marring his tone. "Of course I don't know, being dead and all, but I assume the golden hero of Asgard won the day, and the _fair lady._" He abandoned the flowers, pacing back in her direction, ill-concealed irritation painted all over his voice and posture. He chuckled darkly, and seemed to be half talking to himself as he continued. "Sleeping with one brother while dreaming of the other... You're a rather naughty wench, Jane Foster."

"That's not… I'm not… that's _none_ of your business!" Jane nearly shouted, shooting up off the bench as he stopped before her. Her cheeks red, she pointed a flustered finger in Loki's face, barely caring that her overreaction could only confirm his assumption. "If anyone's to blame, it's you! I certainly didn't invite you into my head!"

She jumped in shock as he caught her by the wrist, pulling her hand out of his face, and jerking her close in the process so that they were suddenly nose to nose.

"Oh, I think not," Loki murmured at her, his tone a dangerous hush. He ran so hot and cold from moment to moment Jane could hardly keep up. "If the dead cannot dream, you can hardly blame me for anything from here on out. Let alone the indiscretions going on inside your head." He smirked with petty pleasure. "Having doubts about your shining thunder god?"

Jane reddened further. "It's not an indiscretion! I can't help what I dream about. And Thor and I aren't… we're good, great… We're not…" Her tongue seemed tied in knots as she tried to defend her relationship with her boyfriend, and realized she didn't know how. She had had more meaningful conversation with Loki in the past two minutes than she'd had with Thor in two days… Her face felt so hot and heavy with her blush that it was a wonder she could hold her head up. "It's none of your business!"

Loki let her twist in the wind for a moment, before he rolled his eyes and released her. Then he stepped back and shocked her again by bursting into a genuine, shoulder-shaking laugh. She stared at him, completely nonplussed.

"Do you know, I feel I haven't had this much fun in ages? Valhalla must be dull indeed. Or more likely Hel," he mused. Jane still couldn't understand how he could talk about his death so casually. "But you're too easy, Jane," he went on, smirking at her. "We'll have to work on that. If it's to be an eternity in a flower garden, I need more of a challenge to keep me entertained."

Jane narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, irritated. But there was a quality about this Loki, despite his quick temper, a carefree air in him that peeked out at odd moments, that she'd never seen or heard anyone speak of. It made it hard to stay upset with him. She chalked it up to him being a figment of her imagination.

And he _wasn't _real, after all. No matter how much they talked about the dead dreaming, or an after life, or who was to blame for this strange recurring dream, Jane knew she must not forget that this was all in her head.

Acknowledging that fact, really facing it, made her feel safer, bolder. She let even more of the tension between them drain away. Dreams could be frightening and confusing, but she was in no real danger. Once she acknowledged that, her wariness began to melt, and her curiosity began to invade.

She began to think about her tone and attitude. Why was she angry with him? Loki done terrible things, sure, there was no question about that. But he had helped rescue her from Asgard. His mother had been killed defending her. And he'd died saving Thor's life.

She bit her lip. Just how much did she owe this man?

Enough that he deserved better than her disdain, even if he was just a figment of her imagination. No matter how difficult or dangerous he seemed, if this was a dream, which it was, there was no reason they needed to be at loggerheads. She started to say so outright, but then thought better of it. Instead, guided by some rash instinct, she baited him.

"Be careful what you wish for," she quipped, raising her eyebrows at him in challenge. "You just might get it."

Loki narrowed his eyes at her, calculating, before a slow smile grew across his face, boyish and wolfish all at once. His eyes sparkled with renewed curiosity, the same they'd held each time their eyes met during their interminable game of tag.

"One can only hope," he said, and there was something portentous in his tone.

And just like that, without fanfare or formality, their unspoken truce was settled.

He glanced around, examining their surroundings, his eyes falling at length on the game board.

"Well then, Jane," he said amicably, "since you have ransomed me from the afterworld for the night, why don't we have a game?"

.

* * *

><p>TBC<p>

.

* * *

><p><strong>An: **And so the goofiness continues. The first person to realize what the red paint and the white roses signify become worthy of Invisible Mjolnir (similar to actual Mjolnir, but invisible, which is obviously way cooler.) Hope everyone has a Happy Valentines Day! And remember, reviews are a healthy part of every muse's balanced diet; otherwise, he's just going to binge on vodka and chocolate chip cookies.


	3. A Wicked Game

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own the plot or characters of the MCU. This can't possibly be for sale or profit, no one would buy it.**  
><strong>

**A/n: **Well, nobody has quite attained invisible Mjolnir yet, but a couple of you have come so remarkably close that I fear I am becoming predictable. But it was a delight as always to read your reviews. Tell you what, I will leave invisible Mjolinir somewhere on one of the nine realms, and if you find it, it's yours! Seems fair... muwahahahaha!  
>.<p>

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter 2<strong>_

_A Wicked Game  
><em>

.

* * *

><p><em>What a wicked game you play, to make me feel this way<br>What a wicked thing you do, to make me dream of you…_

_- Chris Isaak_

.

* * *

><p>And so it began in earnest.<p>

By day, Jane continued her research, which had soared to new heights with the data her instruments had collected during the Convergence and the seemingly limitless cash flow from Stark Industries; time seemed to fly by she plugged values into her algorithms and got back almost impossibly promising results.

And all through the night, Loki was her constant companion in dreams.

Each night now she opened her eyes to find herself in the Queen's Garden, and Loki was never far away. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they bickered, sometimes they stubbornly ignored each other.

But mostly they played games.

It had been strained at first, even more awkward than small talk with Thor. They didn't always make it easy for each other. For a long time, she couldn't look at him without seeing the burning buildings and screaming citizens running through the streets of Manhattan, and he seemed incapable of going five minutes without baiting her, teasing her, or making snide insinuations about Thor.

Yet, as the dreams continued and they spent more and more time isolated in each other's company, those things gradually fell away. Almost as though it were by design, the games became a bridge. The awkwardness and antagonism between them was smoothed when they had something to do with their hands, a diversion to occupy their minds, and a benign outlet for their rapidly evaporating hostility. Disagreements could be settled on the game board, and silence wasn't so oppressive if one was concentrating on the score.

Facilitated by the common language of game play, they somehow began to communicate. It wasn't long before she discovered that she no longer saw Loki's past actions when she looked at him. She just saw Loki.

Unbelievably, by the time Thor had returned from New York two weeks later, the first tenuous strands of a kind of friendship had been forged.

Thor would not tell her much about his trip, no matter how deftly she pried; apparently SHIELD had made it clear that secrecy was part of protecting the world, and Thor took his oath as Earth's protector annoyingly seriously. Over the ensuing weeks, his 'secret missions' (many of which made the news, hardly secret and making his reluctance to talk about them all the more galling) took him away from home more and more frequently. Stark Tower was now commonly referred to by the news media as the Avengers Tower, and Jane suspected that was where he slept; she was never certain.

But even when Thor returned to her bed, and she slept twined in the secure strength of his embrace, whatever it was about his presence that had kept her running the hedge maze was gone. Loki's insinuation that she was playing a wicked game between the two brothers notwithstanding, she and Loki continued to meet in the dream garden beyond the rabbit hole.

.

* * *

><p>Though having the same recurring dream should have become monotonous after a time, there was no danger of growing bored. Games of all sorts cropped up throughout the garden, different ones each night. They played checkers, chess, backgammon, Chinese checkers. She taught him all sorts of card games – he was, unsurprisingly, quite good at poker. Table games and sports equipment occasionally showed themselves as well, and they played badminton, jacks, ping pong, croquet, pool, even hopscotch once.<p>

What surprised her, though, was that sometimes the games and toys that appeared were completely unfamiliar to her – but not to Loki.

"That's a Quinden set," he would say to her look of confusion. Or "these cards are for playing Seven Embers." Or "by the Norns, don't you even know how to shoot dwarven dice?"

It perplexed Jane that her mind could come up with such an array of new games without her direction, but, perhaps as a side effect of dreaming, she wasn't inclined to question it. Instead, she let him teach her his games, as he let her teach him hers.

.

* * *

><p>Loki appeared to enjoy nothing better than a game of chance or skill – especially when he found an opportunity to cheat at it. It had angered Jane at first, needling her sense of sportsmanship and fair play. Loki had been completely unrepentant in the face of her outrage, merely a shrug and a smirk to acknowledge that he'd been caught.<p>

"How do you do that?" Jane huffed, furiously reshuffling the deck after she discovered Loki had somehow been pulling the exact cards he wanted, supposedly at random, from his hand. "There's only one deck!"

"Magic, Jane, is like breathing for me," he explained sagaciously. "It is simply asking too much to expect me not to use it whenever I can. Besides, this was too easy. I _had _to cheat, or I was in very grave danger of falling asleep in the middle of the game."

"Oh yeah? Well, here's another." She poised the deck of cards in one hand and squeezed so that they flicked up into his face and scattered everywhere. "Fifty-Two Card Pickup."

Loki blinked as the cards wafted down around him, and met her glare with a raised eyebrow. Then he held out one hand, and with a flicker of green light, the cards all flew up from where they hand landed and rearranged themselves back into a crisp, neat deck in his palm. With a little smirk, he held the deck out to her.

"Next."

Jane's jaw dropped, and she snatched up the deck and examined it.

"What… how… it's even organized by number and suit!"

"A very simple re-assembling spell," Loki said smugly. "If the deck is viewed as a single unit, the spell brings it back together just as it was designed. Nothing could be easier."

"You… you… you jerk!" she cried, but she was smiling in wonder. "Magic is _definitely _cheating!"

"Jealousy is unbecoming in a lady, Jane," he told her pointedly.

And then they had both burst into laughter.

Over time, his duplicity stopped being so much an imposition to Jane, and rather came to be a game of its own, a subtext to whatever game they played. She began to become incredibly adept at telling when Loki was lying, and though he was a master of the art, she'd noticed that he had his share of subtle tells. It was merely a matter of hawk like scientific observation to deduce them.

Whenever she caught and bested him in spite of his underhanded behavior, the thrill of winning increased exponentially. And she had to admit she enjoyed the way it made his eyes spark with more pleasure than irritation when she managed it, almost as though it impressed and delighted him to be bested at his own game. He had not insinuated that she bored him since the first time, and she found herself pleased that he found her sufficiently 'challenging'.

Sometimes he did play fair, however, if only to keep her on her toes and willing, and if Loki seemed to relish their game play, Jane soon found that she enjoyed it no less. She began to actively look forward to falling asleep at night.

.

* * *

><p>It occurred to Jane on more than one occasion that it ought to strike her as extremely surreal that she was spending so much time amicably getting to know Thor's egomaniacal dead brother over board games, but it was a dream, after all; things that would be awkward or impossible in the waking world felt completely natural in dreams, and this was no exception. So if it ever preoccupied her during the day, she wrote it off as something her mind needed to work through, and as she dreamed, it never occurred to her to question it.<p>

Or rather, they both _did _question it, because they were both unquenchably curious beings; they wondered about it, to each other sometimes, speculated, but discussed all sorts of wild theories, from magic spells to hypnosis to sun spots. But in the end, they always accepted the fact that they had no answers.

There were times that Jane was all set to be truly curious about it – it was her own brain activity, after all – but Loki consistently treated the subject with amused disregard. All but once, when Jane mentioned that she sometimes she felt like he was _really_ there.

At that, Loki brought the conversation up short with a burst of quelling, not-quite-anger.

"I am _dead_, Jane," he snapped suddenly, cutting her off and pinning her with a piercing gaze that made her want to shrink back. "You would do well to remember it."

"Look, I'm sorry, all I meant was…"

"I like it here," he interrupted her, looking away. "I like being able to let my guard down for once. I like being able to be… open with someone. Don't spoil everything by forcing me to remind you of…"

He didn't finish, and Jane wasn't sure she understood, but she felt the weight of his words like a lead blanket over her head and shoulders. It was the first time she had felt his dangerous nature directed at her since that first night. The only time since that first night that she felt like running again.

But she didn't. She wouldn't let her own dreams cow her. And she wouldn't let Loki cow her either.

When she didn't respond, he looked back at her, and she met the intensity in his eyes with a hard look of her own, holding it just long enough to tell him that he was being childish and that he couldn't bully her. Then she turned back to their game – horseshoe, this time - and ignored him until he came out of his mood.

They didn't mention it again, and gradually they stopped theorizing about the dream altogether. It wasn't a difficult topic to give up; as is the nature of dreams, it was easier and more natural to accept things as they were. Like gravity or magnetism in the waking world, the natural law of this dreamscape was that Jane and Loki were together in a garden full of games and roses. And that was just the way things were.

.

* * *

><p>As Jane relaxed into the inevitability of Loki's presence, she found she not only enjoyed their games; she realized that she also enjoyed his company.<p>

She discovered that he could be an extremely smooth talker when he wanted to be. He seemed to know just how speak and exactly what to say to draw her out. When he was in the mood to be pleasant, the Loki of her dreams had an irreverent charm, and once he'd relaxed the environment, his sarcasm took on a funny tone rather than a biting one. He was elegant and eloquent, and could also be serious without being severe; he was a thinker, with a clear and curious intelligence.

She particularly enjoyed discussing her scientific theories with him, because he challenged her ideas, found the chinks in them, made her think in new ways. Talking of practical application was almost impossible – he tended to drift towards whimsical terms like 'magic' and 'spellcraft', incomprehensible and completely useless to Jane's purely scientific mindset.

"It doesn't make any sense!" Jane insisted to him once, after she had asked how Heimdall could see everything in the Nine Realms, and Loki had rattled off something about inter-dimensional quantum field tied magically to the facial nerves controlling the irises by a series of spells layered over time to amplify one another. "I understand inter-dimensional quantum fields, and I understand the physiology of the facial nerves. But then you start talking about 'spells'. You keep talking about magic, but what _is_ it?"

"Magic is a way of learning and being and doing," Loki retorted, "Just like your science."

"Sure," Jane rolled her eyes, "except that it _doesn't make sense._"

"Just because _you_ can't comprehend it, doesn't mean it is incomprehensible."

Jane made a low, warning noise not unlike a growl in the back of her throat. Loki laughed.

"Alright, alright," he relented, "Magic is… hmm… it's like an agreement. Look," he said, and reached out a hand to her over the chess board. Jane cocked a wary eyebrow, but humored him and put her hand in his. His fingers were cool, slender, strong, as they wrapped around hers. "Magic is a connection between two points of matter or energy that don't normally touch. As you know, at the most basic level, there is no difference between matter and energy, and no difference between here and there; everything is interwoven together. Magic reaches deep down from one point into the base matrix of existence, and rushes out to touch another point. When that other point reaches back in return, the connection is completed, and magic is made possible."

"That _really_ doesn't make sense," Jane mused after a moment's contemplation. "It would make magic completely unreliable. What if Point B doesn't want to reach back?"

"Why did you put your hand in mine?" Loki asked her pointedly.

"I…" she frowned. "Because you asked me to?"

"No I didn't. I only reached out for you. You could have chosen not to reach back, but you did." He pierced her with his gaze. "Why?"

Jane blinked, and looked down at their joined hands so she wouldn't have to meet his eyes. Why was she suddenly embarrassed…?

"I don't know… I just did."

"Exactly," Loki smirked. He ran his thumb over the back of her hand once, before letting go. She drew her hand back slowly. "When magic reaches out, we reach back, without thinking. Magic is always an agreement, Jane." He looked at her thoughtfully. "Even if we don't always understand what we've agreed to. Or why."

Jane stared back, her mind blank, except for one thing – the instant she had reached out and taken Frigga's hand in the shade of the World Tree. The wordless agreement… She felt her cheeks turn pink, still embarrassed, and she still didn't know why. Sucking in a deep breath, she cleared her throat and stubbornly shook her head.

"Nope, still doesn't make a bit of sense."

Loki rolled his eyes. "If you don't understand, then you'll just have to be satisfied with accepting that it works as I have said."

"I can't just accept it. I'm a scientist," she retorted. "Satisfaction with unanswered questions is just not in my nature."

Loki raised curious eyebrows at her. She had surprised him somehow. Then he smiled and looked down, and she got the impression that now he was the one that was embarrassed.

"You and I are going to get along just fine, Jane."

The theories they discussed were fascinating, in spite of all the nonsensical magic talk, and the more they talked, the more ideas she woke with the next day; she had applied several to her research, and was thrilled to find that they produced favorable results. She chalked it up to her subconscious mind working out more than her conscious mind could about the data in front of her. And it only made her all the more eager to return each night to her dreams. And to Loki.

.

* * *

><p>As nights passed, Loki's formal armor, leathers, and cape vanished layer by layer, until he was left wearing a green tunic over soft leather trousers – his "home clothes" he said when she asked, amazed to see him dressed so… well, normally.<p>

"I can't look like a conquering king all the time," he said, giving her a look that said he questioned her mental capacity. "Did you really think I _never_ wore anything but full ceremonial armor?"

"You were wearing it when you first got here," she pointed out.

"Well, I didn't know if I was going to have to do any conquering, did I?" he shot back.

Jane rolled her eyes and fought not to smile. More and more she found she couldn't help it. He could be so disarming, and inconveniently distracting. She wondered if the real Loki had ever been so diverting when he wasn't subjugating entire races and destroying planets.

"So you're not wearing it now," she said, challenge in her tone. "Why is that?"

"I suppose I must want to be comfortable," Loki said stiffly, suddenly looking decidedly _un_comfortable, his tone defensive. "I'm _dead,_ after all, Jane. I think I'm entitled to relax a little."

Jane had to admit that was fair enough.

"Besides, how should I know?" he went on, turning the tables on her with a slightly suggestive smirk. "It's your dream, remember. Perhaps you're undressing me with your mind."

Jane did laugh at that, shaking her head as she giggled. When she looked back at him, he was scowling at her with mock severity that quickly morphed into a carefree grin, but Jane had been watching him closely these past weeks as they played their games, and she'd grown perceptive where he was concerned. There was a tightness around his mouth that said her unintentional scorn had stung him under that mask of sarcastic indifference.

Jane regarded for the first time her own clothes in the dream realm – it had never occurred to her to notice before – and found she wore the blue gown she'd been wearing the day they traveled to the Dark World. She narrowed her eyes experimentally, thinking hard. But try as she might, she could not get the gown to change into something less formal.

"I can't do it consciously," she admitted, her scientist's curiosity provoked. "The change must be subconscious. Maybe it means I've gotten used to you."

Loki cocked that expressive eyebrow at her, and tried to smirk, but it came out warmer than she was sure he intended. The subject was soon dropped, to his apparent relief.

.

* * *

><p>The next time Jane dreamed, she was dressed in a comfortable old pair of flannel pajama pants and her favorite worn-out old Mickey Mouse tee shirt.<p>

"I guess I decided to get comfortable too," she told a curious Loki when he commented on her 'outlandish attire'. "Playing games all night long in our pajamas. I feel like we're having a never-ending slumber party."

He asked what she meant, and as they faced off over a newly-arrived foosball table, she told him about the slumber parties she had attended as a child, the games they would play, about telling scary stories, making popcorn and smores, watching movies until dawn, even sneaking out of the house a few times to teepee the yards of classmates or teachers.

"The one rule of a slumber party is that you never fall asleep," she explained.

"Then why do you call it a slumber party?"

"Because your parents like to think you're sleeping instead of finding ways to get into trouble. But never mind that," Jane waved dismissively. "The point is, if you do fall asleep, you're fair game for any prank. The first person to fall asleep always gets the worst."

She went on to regale him with the all the basics, from drawing whiskers on their face, to duck taping them to the bed, to the classic shaving cream and feather gag. He laughed, apparently delighted with her story, and impressed, he informed her, with the ingenuity and mischief of Midgardian girl children.

"Well what about you?" she asked after a time. "Surely you got into some trouble as a kid."

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask about Thor, but something told her not to speak his name; not here, not now – that it might shatter the peace that had grown between them; that it might shatter this dream world beyond repair. The urge against it was so strong that she nearly bit her tongue.

It surprised her to realize how much the thought of never having this dream again upset her.

Fortunately, Loki was oblivious to her thoughts, and, slowly at first, then with increasing animation, he began to tell her stories of his childhood. He began with his favorite tricks, first designed and executed purely by wit, and then, as he learned to control his magic with ever greater alacrity, the illusions he used to trick the people around him, mentioning how it cost him a bit of popularity, but was worth it in the end to see the looks on some usually stoic faces.

"When the troops lined up to drill, I used to levitate little beetles into the chinks of their armor," he confessed. "They had to keep stock still while at attention, with the beetles crawling around under the armor."

"What a rotten little kid," Jane teased, giggling in spite of herself.

"Not at all!" Loki defended himself, his eyes tracking the ball between the little football players. "It was quality assurance. An Einherjar warrior should be able to withstand at least that much. I was weeding out the weak."

Jane could only laugh, thoroughly enjoying the stories, and enjoying picturing the man before her as a young boy, relatively innocent of all the troubles that awaited him one day.

She was further surprised when, without prompting, he branched out into describing other pursuits of his youth, talking with feeling about the beauty of the foothills that began just beyond the edge of the eternal city, his favorite place to play and explore throughout his early life. He would climb cliff sides or tall trees and spend anywhere from hours to days at a time nestled in some high place with a pilfered cache of honey cakes and a stack of books he'd taken out of palace library. One thing they had in common was their love of riding horses; Jane mentioned that she had spent summers of her childhood on her grandfather's farm, to which Loki had bragged of his skill on horseback, which, he went on, had given rise to jealousy and some rather incredible rumors about the parentage of his father's eight-legged stallion.

"Oh, ew!" Jane laughed when he told her the old rumor that had made its way into Norse legend, "nobody could actually have believed that!"

"You'd be surprised. My skill with shape-shifting was known as far and wide as my skill in the saddle. And people…" He looked away. "People are always ready to believe the worst of others. The more deranged and perverse the better."

"You're not honestly saying you can change your shape," Jane challenged him, hoping to distract him from what looked like the beginnings of a maudlin mood.

"Child's play," he told her boldly, letting her change the subject. "Literally, I've been able to change my shape almost since birth. I…" he trailed off, and Jane watched a shadow pass across his eyes. "I've been tricking people all my life." He shook it off, and grinned at her. "Maybe I'll show you sometime."

Jane could feel about a hundred questions crowding on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them and wisely let the subject drop. Now wasn't the moment, and he'd probably just give her another magic lecture that she didn't understand. Instead, she asked him about his education.

"Histories, languages, astronomy, mathematics, interplanetary diplomatic relations, spellcraft, weaponry. The usual subjects. I always excelled with the magic masters, of course," he boasted shamelessly, and Jane smiled and rolled her eyes. "My mother insisted upon artistic pursuits as well; painting, sculpting, music. I never particularly enjoyed the lute, but I did enjoy singing."

"You sing?" Jane asked, suddenly intrigued. Impulsively, she insisted, "You have to sing something for me!"

"I said I enjoyed it, I didn't say I excelled at it," he told her, pursing his lips at the admission, as though he had said more than he intended to. "And I won't be singing, for you, or anyone."

"I'll sing for you if you'll sing for me," she blurted, twisting up her face a bit as she realized she'd said more than she wanted to as well. Her voice wasn't awful, but she was no singer. It was humiliating to contemplate.

Still, for reasons beyond her comprehension, she wanted to hear this man sing. Badly. So much so that she wondered if it was the dream changing its rules again; it had never occurred to her to want to sing or be sung to before, but now it was almost overwhelmingly intriguing to her.

He looked almost as interested as she felt, but all he said was, "Tempting, Jane, but I think not."

To distract her, he went on to talk about his physical and mental education as a warrior, describing the training all the young men of Asgard received – which sounded brutal to Jane, and gave her a whole new respect for the chiseled physiques of the Asgardians she'd encountered. He boasted that he was especially skilled with archery and throwing knives – from his tone of voice, Jane could tell he was really proud of it, even though he spoke with more self-deprecation than she had ever heard from him before.

"Not that being the best with knives won me any kind of respect," he said a bit sourly, his brow furrowing, his eyes distant. "It's a useful skill for women and assassins, but considered a dishonorable tactic for a warrior in battle." He smirked at her. "After all, it isn't _fair play_ to fight from a distance. We must always give the enemy a chance to kill us in return, or we must be cowards."

Jane frowned disapprovingly at that. He was trying to equate her irritation with his cheating at their game play with the Asgardian ideas about honor, but it wasn't the same at all. Plus, she didn't like the sexism inherent in the idea that a dishonorable battle skill was reserved for women. Nor, she realized, did she like the thought of anyone even obliquely insulting Loki simply because he was more skilled at throwing knives than running someone through with a sword. And she didn't like thinking of battles, period. She knew Thor and his friends almost considered war a sport, but she would never be the kind of person to find it anything but abhorrent, an occasional necessary evil, but not something to enjoy or celebrate. It wasn't in her.

"Fair play is for games," she said decisively, catching his eye. "If you're in a fight for your life, you don't worry about rules. You live, whatever it takes."

Loki looked at her for a long moment, his face serious, his eyes intense, as though her words held far more weight than she suspected. The corner of his mouth curled slowly upward. Jane felt like she must have missed something; as though what she had said, and what he had heard, might be two different things.

"On Asgard they would say that attitude is duplicitous," he warned her, but his expression remained approving.

"Well on Earth we have a saying: 'All's fair in love and war'."

Loki cocked his head at her, as though seeing her anew.

"Is that so?" he murmured, and the words again seemed heavier with meaning than they should be.

Their eyes locked.

Jane felt her chest begin to get tight as he held her with his intense gaze. His face relaxed further, became entirely serious, his gaze thoughtful, and for reasons far beyond her comprehension, her face began to heat and her heart started to pound in her ears. She could feel the weight of his clear green eyes from the top of her head all the way down to the tips of her toes, and had to swallow against the sudden dryness in her mouth. Strange that she'd never before noticed what a striking shade of green his eyes were. A beautiful hue. Mesmerizing.

He suddenly spun one of the foosball rods so hard that the entire table jarred, startling a gasp from her and sending the little ball flying into her goal.

"I win," Loki informed her smugly. He laughed as Jane shrilly protested, despite the clear victory, and the moment passed.

But Jane couldn't forget that it had happened.

It was because it was just a dream – because it was not real. But whatever the reason, Jane was stunned by how far she had let her guard down, and she could not figure out when she had allowed herself to grow so incomprehensibly comfortable with Loki.

.

* * *

><p>TBC<p>

.

* * *

><p><strong>An: **Hope you enjoyed this chapter, fairly certain its the last semi-normal one in the story. Next: singing. I warned you it was coming, you have no one to blame but yourself.


End file.
